


After That

by kethni



Series: Ranch Life [2]
Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25381804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: He was starting to feel that he was never going to be the way he had been before the latest heart attack. He suspected that Kent had known that for months.
Relationships: Ben Cafferty/Kent Davison
Series: Ranch Life [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838098
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	After That

**Author's Note:**

> For shoesallinaline

Ben was a city boy: he couldn’t sleep without traffic sounds, he thought of animals purely in terms of how they tasted, and he was solidly of the opinion that stores being closed at the weekend was an affront to human dignity.

It was extremely annoying then when Kent brought a list of ranches for sale and all of them were in or near urban areas. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Ranches were supposed to be in the middle of the country. They were supposed to be manned by people with three teeth and an education that finished when they were nine.

‘That is completely ridiculous,’ Kent said. ‘A stream of offensive stereotypes that you _know_ have no basis in reality.’

Ben threw down the listings. ‘Why do you want a ranch anyway?’

‘We’ve discussed this.’ Kent put his hand on his hip. ‘I’m tired of having the same arguments.’

‘Fine, you think of something to argue about then.’

Kent didn’t smile. ‘I’m sure that you find yourself extremely amusing.’

‘One of us has to.’ He picked up the listings again. ‘Which one do you like?’

Kent sat down on the couch beside Ben. The couch had seen better days. It was a little battered by life with one leg already repaired and a cushion replaced. There were indentations on the cushions where the two men had sat too many times before. Ben knew that it probably wouldn’t last much longer, that it was collapsing by inches, but he couldn’t bring himself to say so to Kent.

‘This one is barely a mile from the nearest town and the ranch house is all on one level.’

Ben looked at Kent. ‘Why the fuck do you think all on one level is a good thing?’

‘Because you won’t have to worry about climbing stairs,’ Kent said.

Ben felt himself reddening. ‘I’m not an invalid!’

‘We have to be realistic.’

‘Says who? Fuck being realistic! _And_ I didn’t ask which one you thought was the best for me. I asked which one you liked.’ Ben stabbed the listings with a sausage-like finger. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘Since when?’ Kent asked.

It was especially annoying since Ben had worked hard since his last heart attack. Yeah, yeah, he bitched and complained about the exercises and he never stopped spitting bile about the diet he was on. He still did the exercises. He cursed and sweated, he genuinely meant it when he said he felt like he was dying, but he did them. He loathed the diet. He threatened and cajoled to do something, anything, else. He could have cheated. Even with Kent making most of his meals, he could have cheated. He didn’t. He worked hard and all his hard work paid off when he could eventually slowly walk up to, ooh, a mile. If he went slowly and had a long rest before he tried to come back.

He was starting to feel that he was never going to be the way he had been before the latest heart attack. He suspected that Kent had known that for months.

***

The animal looked like a stuffed toy. No living and breathing creature had any business looking like it had been designed by a toddler trying to draw a lamb.

‘Do they bite?’ Ben asked, keeping his distance.

‘It’s on the other side of the fence,’ Kent said.

‘I can see that! Look at its neck. It could lean over here.’

Someone in the group sniggered. Ben ignored it. Coming here as part of a tour group had been his idea. They could check the place out without all the high-pressure tactics of visiting with a realtor. He still wasn’t convinced that any of this was a good idea, mind.

‘They’re not generally aggressive,’ Kent said mildly.

Ben snorted. ‘You’re not _generally_ aggressive but you have your moments.’

The group moved on towards the stables. Ben looked over towards the pasture where a handful of the alpacas were grazing. He didn’t share Kent’s apparently boundless appreciation of just about every animal on the planet. He quite liked dogs, but they were way too needy and anyway Kent had cats. They only just tolerated Ben. They definitely wouldn’t welcome a dog.

He wondered how they’d feel about alpacas.

Kent tickled his fingers. Ben glanced at the other visitors: none of them gave any indication of noticing.

‘What do they ranch them for?’

‘Hmm?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Nobody’s eating them. Right?’

Kent chuckled. ‘I don’t believe so.’

‘Do they give milk? Is there cheese? What’s the _point_?’

‘Alpaca’s are shorn yearly,’ the guide said helpfully. ‘And, of course, their dung is sold as fertiliser.’

Ben lowered his voice. ‘If you want to farm shit we could stay in DC.’

Kent’s moustache twitched. ‘That wouldn’t work. Nobody would pay for a commodity in such plentiful supply.’

‘Let me introduce you to this little thing called bottled water. In case you’re confused, those assholes sell bottles, not water.’

Kent rolled his eyes. ‘I’m trying to listen.’

Ben glanced at the guide. ‘Gimmie a break. I bet you’ve already read nine books about alpaca ranching by now. You probably know more than she does.’

‘Ben, I love you, but please shut the hell up and let me listen,’ Kent said.

The other man smirked. ‘See, aggressive.’

***

Ben had never much thought about retiring. He just always assumed that he’d die at his desk. He nearly had. Retiring was something people who had jobs did. People with careers worked long past retirement age. Maybe they “retired” from their career but they did something else to “pass the time.” Like sit on boards or run foundations. That kind of shit. Ben had always thought Kent would do shit like that. It turned out instead Kent had a hankering to buy a ranch and play Farmer Brown while Ben got to do… nothing.

‘You could take a course,’ Kent suggested as he got undressed.

Ben carefully got into bed. ‘There’s nothing I want to learn.’

‘I hope that’s not true.’

‘What could I possibly want to do a course about?’ Ben demanded.

Kent put his hand on his hip. ‘Literature. History. Pottery. Psychology. Chemistry. Nutrition –’

Ben threw a pillow at him. ‘You’re just listing shit _you_ would do a course in.’

‘And I can’t imagine why you would have fewer unexplored areas of interest.’

‘You’ve _met_ me.’

Kent threw the pillow onto the bed. ‘Yes, and I know that you have a mind that requires challenges and stimulation. You get bored too easily to spend your time gardening or playing golf.’

Ben scowled. ‘I hate golf.’

The bed dipped as Kent got in besides him. ‘I wasn’t suggesting that you take it up. I _am_ saying that you need to find an interest, project, or object on which to focus.’ He took Ben’s hand in his. ‘We all need to feel some sense of achievement.’

Ben stroked Kent’s knuckles with his thumb. ‘I’ve never had one before. Why start now?’

‘Goodnight, Ben.’

‘Maybe I’m not done hassling you. You think of that?’

Kent chuckled as he lay down and turned over. ‘If I waited until you had finished annoying me then I fear I would never get any sleep.’

‘If I waited for you to start sex, I’d never get any,’ Ben retorted.

Kent looked over his shoulder. ‘If you want to have sex then why did you insist on watching the end of the movie?’

‘In a general sense. I don’t mean tonight.’

‘I see.’ Kent turned off his lamp. ‘You just wanted the last word, no matter how irrelevant.’

‘I thought the change of pace might be nice.’

Kent shook his head. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Yeah. Goodnight.’

***

Ben would never tell Kent, but he enjoyed buying the ranch. He didn’t actually give a shit about any of it, he wasn’t “invested” the way that Kent was, but it was pretty fun doing all the work on it. Chasing up the realtor and lawyers, negotiating the price, arranging movers, and all that shit. He’d missed being able to yell at assholes. He got to yell at Kent at home, sure, but that wasn’t the same. That had lost its appeal before they’d finally admitted what was going on between them.

Ben wouldn’t have gone back to those days even if he could. He’d cheated on wives plenty of times. He didn’t feel especially good about it. Well, beyond how good sex with someone new felt and the excitement of sneaking around, anyway. But Kent hadn’t been willing to do that, and his refusal made Ben feel bad just thinking about it. Kent liked Joyce and he thought that cuckolding her was a shitty thing to do. Ben’s argument that they’d been circling each other for months was pretty shitty already did nothing to change his mind. If anything, it had dampened Kent’s interest pretty severely for quite a while. When Ben had heard the bullshit about someone making someone want to be a better person, he’d thought it was supposed to be inspiring. Turned out that Kent made him want to be a better person because he really didn’t like Ben being the crappy person that they both knew he was. Not even deep down. Ben had never pretended to be better than he was. Well, only to his wives. Everyone did that.

Ben didn’t enjoy being relegated to watching other people actually moving them. Other people pack up the house, other people moved their stuff out and then in, other people unpacked, other people installed and set-up their belongings. It felt less like he was the one moving and more like he was being abducted by aliens keen on just the right kind of interactive environment.

He stomped away from the ranch house without much clear idea of a specific destination. There weren’t that many places to go on the ranch. There was the ranch house, the stables, a few storage buildings, and the little building that the ranch hands used. Ranch hands. No wonder Kent had wanted a ranch. He was definitely in love with the idea of being able to tell people that he employed “ranch hands.”

Ben leaned against the fence. There were a handful of alpacas scattered in the field. A handful of alpacas and… Harris, sat regarding the alpacas with wary interest.

‘Hey!’ Ben called over. ‘Come over here! What the hell are you doing you idiot? You’re not supposed to be out of your cage.’

Harris glanced briefly in Ben’s direction and then returned his attention to the alpacas.

Fuck.

‘They’ll probably eat you if you get any nearer,’ Ben said, pulling out his phone. ‘Two bites and you’d be on your way to coming out as alpaca shit. Dung. Whatever.’

An alpaca noticed Harris. It regarded him with some confusion.

‘Why are you telephoning?’ Kent asked curiously. ‘You’re quite loud enough to hear throughout the house.’

‘If I thought that you could hear me from all the way across the fucking ranch then I wouldn’t be calling,’ Ben retorted. ‘Your idiot cat got out of his carrier.’

‘What? Which?’

Harris was moving very carefully forward.

‘Harris, that’s the orange one, right? He’s out here in field about to get eaten by an alpaca.’

‘They don’t eat cats!’

Ben scowled. ‘Then why can I see that you’ve just coming running out of the ranch house like your ass is on fire?’

‘Because it’s too soon for Harris to be wandering around and I don’t want him to get lost!’

Ben shrugged. ‘He’s doing that rubbing thing with two of the alpacas. He’s probably not going anywhere just yet.’

‘Keep an eye on him until I get there.’

Ben squinted towards the ranch house. He could see Kent hurrying towards him. His slim, long-legged silhouette against the sun was distinctive.

‘If your idiot cat starts running, I’ll be fucked. I can’t keep up with you never mind a damn cat,’ Ben said.

‘You don’t have to. Cats aren’t endurance predators. Humans are. You wouldn’t be able to keep up if you ran but if you walked at a reasonable pace you would still have plenty of energy long after Harris had to sit down and rest.’

Ben put his cell away as Kent grew close. ‘Oh, so now you’re claiming I have endurance?’

Kent rolled his eyes. ‘Only compared to a cat.’

They looked over to Harris, who was now sat on top of the alpaca.

‘This could be complicated,’ Kent said thoughtfully.

***

Joyce called while Ben was trying to read a novel. If you could call it that. He hadn’t had the time or inclination to read for pleasure in years. Decades maybe. Now he was trying his old favourites and wondering what the hell he’d been thinking about the first time around.

‘Are you busy?’ Joyce asked.

‘Since when do you care? You just start talking no matter what,’ he grumbled.

‘Oh, you are in a _mood_ ,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to Kent.’

Ben groaned. ‘Don’t do that. He’s not my dad for fuck’s sake.’

‘Definitely the grown-up though,’ she said tartly.

He pulled a face. ‘I can be a grown up. Hello Joyce. How are you? How is Sandy? See, I can pretend we’re cordial.’

She said something under her breath in Mandarin. ‘I’m fine. Sandy is fine. She just got a promotion at work.’

‘Great,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘Are you calling about the kids? I know you cashed the last check so…’

She sighed. ‘When was the last time you talked to Monica?’

Ben blinked. ‘Monica who?’

Joyce swore in Mandarin. ‘Monica _Cafferty_. Your second wife. Remember her?’

Ben rubbed his forehead. ‘I remember nothing good comes from someone asking if I remember her.’

‘You got that right.’

***

Kent was in the stables. Ben trod heavily as he walked over. He frowned as he watched a young, and unnecessarily good-looking, man in a tight t-shirt and even tighter khakis flash a grin at Kent as he talked him some damn thing or other about alpaca care.

‘Hey,’ Ben said, a little out of breath from the walk.

‘Hi,’ Kent said, clearly somewhat surprised. ‘I thought you were reading.’

‘What’re you doing?’

‘This macho needs his toenails trimming,’ Kent said.

Ben looked at both of them. ‘Uhh…’

‘The alpaca,’ Kent said. ‘Males are called machos. You know that.’

Ben released a breath. ‘Oh. Right.’ He scratched his forehead. ‘You got a minute in between pedicures?’

‘Sure.’

They moved over to the corner of the stable. Ben looked over again at the ranch hand.

Kent snapped his fingers. ‘Focus, please, you can stare inappropriately at the staff another time. Preferably in a much less obvious manner since I would rather avoid a lawsuit.’

‘Me staring? You’re the one who was all snuggly,’ Ben huffed. ‘And quit smirking. I know jealously is idiotic. He’s not going to kick some twenty-two-year-old blond out of his bed for an old fart like you.’

Kent put his hand on his hip. ‘Ben, what did you want to discuss?’

Ben grimaced. ‘So, did you ever meet my daughter Bianca?’

‘I don’t believe so. She’s Monica’s girl, isn’t she? You weren’t awarded custody.’

‘Yeah. Well. Things have changed, more than a bit, and Monica needs me to… actually do the dad thing for a while.’

Kent pursed his lips. ‘What do you mean?’

Ben licked his lips. ‘Joyce called; she’s looking after Bianca for a couple days. Monica’s real sick. She and Joyce kinda… well the kids are close in age. They decided a while to suck it up and give the kids a chance to interact properly as siblings.’

Kent pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘But Bianca isn’t Joyce’s responsibility.’

‘No,’ Ben said. ‘Plus, she’s fourteen now so, you know, a complete pain in the ass. Joyce has enough on her plate looking after Kim and Kai.’

‘Presumably her mother being so ill isn’t exactly improving her life experience,’ Kent said dryly.

Ben rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I told Joyce I’d pick her up later today.’

Kent blew out his cheeks. ‘I’ll prepare a bedroom for her. Where does she go to school?’

‘How the fuck would I know that?’

‘You’re her _father_ ,’ Kent said. ‘I understand that you’ve had little direct contact with her but surely Monica sends you some form of communication. Letters. Phone calls. Bills for supplies.’

‘I send a check once a month, and you have to remind me to do that.’

Kent blinked. ‘That’s it?’

Ben began to redden. ‘Yeah. That’s it. No access.’

‘What about gifts for Christmas and birthdays?’

‘I wouldn’t remember that shit if _I_ had custody of her,’ Ben retorted. ‘Come on, don’t gimmie that look. You know me.’

‘I thought that I did.’ Kent pushed his fingers through his hair. ‘Perhaps I should pick her up and you should clear up a bedroom. Jenny is cleaning the living room. She can assist.’

Ben folded his arms. ‘Why? If she’s gonna be staying here I’m gonna have to try to be her dad.’

Kent cocked his head. ‘Because if my father utterly ignored my existence until my mother’s illness forced me to leave my home and all my friends then having him come to pick me up would be the very last thing I wanted.’

Ben looked away. ‘Fine. Do what you fucking want. I’m sure she’s gonna love meeting her dad’s boyfriend.’

Kent began walking away. ‘She’s currently staying with the woman her father left her mother for. I would hazard a guess that Bianca can be quite pragmatic with regards to the people you sleep with.’

‘I like you better when you’re not judging me,’ Ben grumbled.

‘I’m not judging,’ Kent said. ‘I’m disappointed. In both of us.’ 

Ben snorted. ‘Yeah. No judgement there.’ 

***

They had a guest bedroom because that was the kind of thing that Kent thought you should have. For someone with some wild hobbies he could be weirdly keen on social norms, or at least the kind of social norms old middle-class ladies had. There was a room, it was cleaned weekly, and it had bedding. Ben didn’t know what the fuck else was needed but Jenny gave him this _look_ when he said that, so he told her to do whatever would make Kent happy, and left her to it. That always seemed to work better with staff than telling them what he wanted. Employees always seemed to like Kent better. It was galling. Ben had better social skills and he generally had a better chance of following whatever pop-culture was being thrown around. Who wanted a robot for a boss? Lots of people, it turned out.

Ben knew that he was trying to avoid thinking about the situation. He got one of the hands to drive him to the supermarket. A teenage girl wasn’t gonna eat what he and Kent ate, right? Especially not the stuff that Kent ate. Jesus. Half of it, Ben couldn’t even pronounce. If Monica hadn’t changed then Bianca had been raised on a diet of cheap sugary crap with a side of good hearty fat. The kind of diet that would make Kent blanch. Well, he could argue with her about it. For once in his life Ben was going to be the good cop.

Ben was putting the groceries away when Kent returned. Ben heard the tires hit the gravel and looked out of the window. Kent’s Prius pulled to a halt and he got out. Ben took a deep breath and made his way around to the front door. Kent was unloading the luggage. Bianca was helping him. Huh. Ben didn’t know who she’d inherited that from. She was a couple inches shorter than Ben with ramrod straight hair just down past her shoulders. She had what Ben’s mom would’ve called a “healthy build” which meant that these days she probably spent half her life dieting.

When she turned around and saw him, he saw her lips pull tight.

‘Is the room ready?’ Kent asked.

‘Yeah, Jenny put some fresh bedding on and sprayed something around.’ He glanced at Bianca. ‘In case you want a room that smells like a florist got drunk and humped a bunch of the flowers.’

She didn’t answer, just followed Kent. They were both carrying boxes. Ben went around to the car to see how many there were. Fuck. It looked like she was planning on staying for a month.

He went back to the kitchen to put away the rest of the groceries.

***

‘What on earth have you been buying?’ Kent asked squinting at the receipt that Ben had left on the counter.

‘Mind your own business,’ Ben retorted. ‘Help me get these cans of Mountain Dew in here.’

‘Pick one,’ Kent said.

‘Be a dick then. Enjoy the Dewnami when I drop the cans and they all burst open.’

Kent pulled a face. ‘I suppose you’re very proud of yourself for that.’

‘Yeah.’

Kent took the case from him and put it on the shelf. ‘Why have you bought Pabst Blue Ribbon? We don’t drink beer.’

Ben leaned back against the wall. ‘Not that beer, that’s for sure.’

‘And all this junk food.’ Kent shook his head. ‘Why have you been buying _anything_? You never do the grocery shopping. With good cause looking at what you’ve bought.’

‘Ha-fucking-ha,’ Ben grumbled. ‘I thought I’d get some stuff in that Bianca might like. She’s not gonna want to eat what we do.’

Kent raised his eyebrows. ‘Sugary cereals and _beer_? Beer! She’s fourteen!’

‘Right,’ Ben said. ‘She’s not gonna have any tolerance for whiskey.’

‘She’s underage!’

Ben snorted. ‘Yeah, and she’s gonna drink, and I’d rather she drink beer than fucking vodka shots or whatever. Look, if we let her drink with us then drinking isn’t some dangerous, sexy, forbidden thing where she goes out and gets blackout drunk.’

Kent put his hand on his hip. ‘Those are _not_ the only options.’

‘Maybe not in Kentworld, but here in the real world that’s what I’m working with.’ 

‘The real world being one in which parents give their fourteen-year-old daughters beer, obviously.’

‘When _you_ have a kid then we can have this conversation how about that?’

He knew. The second before he said he knew. As the words were coming out of his damn mouth he knew. But it was too late by then and Ben wasn’t one for vacillating or any of that shit.

Kent’s expression drained away. He set his jaw, turned on his heel, and walked away.

Fuck.

***

It took stupidly long for Ben to put all the groceries away. Kent hadn’t come back, and Ben wasn’t going to go hunting around to ask him for help. They should probably have some time apart anyway. Let tempers cool off.

As Ben finally finished, he made a pot of coffee and slumped down into a chair at the kitchen table. He could hear voices somewhere in the house. Didn’t sound like arguing. The last fucking thing they needed was for Kent and Bianca to hate each other. Ben was relying on Kent to be a human shield for him. Kent actually _liked_ kids. Hell, he even claimed to like people generally but that was clearly bullshit. Only dogs liked people generally and that was a pretty firm rebuttal to the idea that dogs were smarter than cats.

‘Oh.’

Ben looked up. Bianca was in the doorway. She tightly folded her arms.

‘I’m just making coffee,’ he said. ‘I’ll be gone in a couple minutes.’

‘Kent said I could help myself to lunch,’ she said.

Ben waved his arm vaguely in the direction of the pantry and refrigerator. ‘You, uh, you get all your stuff unpacked?’

She snorted. ‘No. It’s been like an hour and I’ve got twelve boxes. Do the math.’

Ben set his jaw. ‘You don’t need to take that tone.’

Bianca turned around. ‘What?’

‘Let’s treat each other with some respect,’ he said. He knew as he said it that it was worse than stupid. It was provocative when he had no desire to provoke her.

‘Respect?’ she echoed. ‘So… when will you be doing that?’

‘Bianca –’

‘Or do you just mean that I should treat you with respect?’ She swallowed sharply.

Ben realised that she was shaking. Her nails were digging into her palms.

He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t mean that.’

She turned back to the pantry and took out a can of soup. Ben stood up and moved to the coffee pot. 

‘You want some coffee?’ he asked.

She looked at him as if he’d just offered her a bucketful of dead slugs.

‘ _Why_ would I want that?’

‘People do.’ He pushed himself to his feet and shuffled to the coffee pot.

Bianca put her hand on her hip as she watched him. ‘Should you be out of bed? What’s wrong with you?’

‘I’m fine.’

She pulled a face. ‘Okay, whatever.’

Ben sighed as he watched her putting the soup in a bowl. ‘I had a heart attack a few months ago. I’m getting better.’

‘Oh. You didn’t die?’

‘You want to think some more about that question?’

Bianca shoved the bowl into the microwave. ‘Joyce told me to be nice to you because you’re old and sick and probably going to die soon but you are making it _really_ difficult.’

Ben took a step back. ‘I nearly died,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve had heart attacks before. That was the worst. If Kent hadn’t given me CPR, if the paramedics hadn’t got there as quick as they did, if a hundred little things had gone kinda differently then I’d be dead.’

Bianca pursed her lips. ‘My mom is dying. Like _actually_ dying and she is a _much_ better person than you. She worked her ass off bringing me up while you ran around getting married every year and pumping out a bunch kids to abandon. It’s not fair. You should be the one dying. Not her.’

‘If there was anything that I could do for her –’

‘You wouldn’t,’ Bianca said, pulling the soup of the microwave. ‘You haven’t done anything for her or me since you left. Why would you start now?’

She pushed past him and stomped off to her room.

***

Ben found Kent in his study, looking at the accounts. Kent glanced up at him.

‘Meeting Bianca went _great_ ,’ Ben said.

‘Go away.’

Ben sat down in the guest chair. ‘I’m sorry.’

Kent shook his head. ‘You’re sorry that I’m angry with you. Not that you said it.’

‘It can be both.’

Kent gave him a dark look. ‘Either that is flippant, which is entirely inappropriate, or you mean it, in which case please fuck off.’

‘Whoa! That’s a little…’

‘You hurt me,’ Kent said. ‘A great deal. I am angry about it. I have a right to my anger. I have a right to you taking that seriously and acknowledging it.’

Ben sighed. ‘Yeah, you do.’ He put his hand on the desk, a few inches away from Kent’s. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

‘Is that so.’

‘Do you seriously think I’d throw that in your face?’ Ben shook his head. ‘I’d have said the same thing to anyone without kids.’

Kent sat back in his chair. ‘You didn’t say it to anyone. You said it to me.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said. ‘I could find you a sonnet or something, but I figured you’d prefer me not to hide behind someone else’s words.’

‘Your words aren’t my favourite thing at the best of times,’ Kent said sourly. ‘This is not the best of times.’

Ben tentatively touched the back of Kent’s hand. ‘I was an asshole. I’m sorry. I’d promise that it’d never happen again but we both know that’d be a lie.’

Kent blew out his cheeks. ‘You’re not making a very compelling argument.’

‘I’m not gonna lie to you,’ Ben said. ‘I lied to Monica. I lied to Joyce. I lied to Kim. I probably lied to every woman I dated and every man I screwed. I don’t lie to you. Do you want me to promise a bunch of shit we both know I can’t do?’

Kent sighed. ‘No. I don’t want you to do that.’

‘We’ve had big arguments before and I’ve never thrown that in your face,’ Ben said. ‘Because I’d never think that was okay. It was thoughtless. I was a dick by accident. Not on purpose.’

‘That shouldn’t make it better,’ Kent said.

‘But it does, right? Because you knew I was a loudmouth asshole when you started banging me. Loudmouth asshole was part of the deal. Cruel fucking prick wasn’t.’

Kent gestured with his other hand. ‘Please stop. I don’t think I can take your silver tongue anymore.’

Ben tilted his head. ‘My tongue is useful for some things though.’

Kent half-chuckled as he shook his head. ‘You are not getting around me with crude sexual wiles. Go away and let me work.’

‘Okay.’ Ben heaved himself to his feet. ‘You still mad?’

Kent waggled his hand.

‘Thanks for picking up Bianca,’ Ben said. ‘She fucking hates me.’

‘Things will probably go a little easier if you accept that she’s allowed to hate you,’ Kent said mildly. ‘She’s a teenager and you’re… you.’

Ben started to walk away. ‘She’s totally allowed to hate me,’ he said. ‘Best part is that means you’ll be the one dealing with boys and birth control and all that shit.’

‘She’s only fourteen,’ Kent called after him.

Ben shook his head. ‘Oh, you have no fucking idea.’

The End


End file.
